Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Rodrigo Amado: This Is Our Language

17

Rodrigo Amado: This Is Our Language

By

View read count
Track review of "Ritual Evolution"

Rodrigo Amado: This Is Our Language
Experimental jazz, largely framed on wide-ranging improvisational tactics, inhabits a tightknit if not cloistered community, partially by default due to its avant-garde underpinnings. With the album moniker This Is Our Language, eminent Portuguese saxophonist Rodrigo Amado imparts a bond or connection to free-jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman's fifth album, This Is Our Music (Atlantic, 1960).

Legendary saxophonist, trumpeter Joe McPhee consummates the frontline, as the overall muse encapsulates a hybrid exposition of temperate and supersonic explorations amid nods to free bop and Coleman's historic quartet-based fare. As expected, Amado's full throttle and sweltering performances come to the forefront via a beauty and the beast type hodgepodge of garrulous pulses, extended soloing jaunts and ravenous exchanges, including drummer Chris Corsano's zippy patterns and rumbling grooves.

"Ritual Evolution" builds steam as an investigative piece where prominent Chicago-based bassist Kent Kessler's creaky arco notes frame the band's start/stop momentum, topped off with tentative mini-motifs and staggered interactions. They pose a linear sequence of jittery or perhaps nervy dialogues, featuring McPhee's flirtatious and contrasting pocket trumpet lines. Marked by a gradual ascension, the rhythm section pushes and pulls matters, leading to a simmering climax, amped by the hornists' brisk flurries and terse exchanges. But during the bridge, Amado shifts the flow into a Albert Ayler marching band style vibe leading to closeout as each track tells a distinct story on this polygonal production, accentuated by the quartet's perceptive teamwork.

Track Listing

The Primal Word; This Is Our Language; Theory Of Mind (For Joe); Ritual Evolution; Human Behavior.

Personnel

Rodrigo Amado
saxophone, tenor

Rodrigo Amado: tenor saxophone; Joe McPhee: pocket trumpet, alto saxophone; Kent Kessler: double bass; Chris Corsano: drums.

Album information

Title: This Is Our Language | Year Released: 2015 | Record Label: Not Two Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.